Never Pass Up the Chance to Whack a Politician in the Ear, You Will Be Filled with Regret Later On: Life Lessons from an Angry Misanthrope (Whose Livelihood is Being Threatened By Two Dense Zealots), Part One

I couldn’t count on the fingers of Kali the number of politicians I have wanted to whack in the ear but I can tally on one hand the number that have been in the belly of the beast and nearly took one firmly on the chin.

On top of the latter group sits Stephen Conroy, ALP senator and jackboot Nazi, whom I had by the scruff yet released in a sudden flood of personal mercy.

It was Budget Night, 2004, at the most seediest of Canberra establishments, the Holy Grail in Kingston. As always, it was a rollicking evening patronised by various political types: the politicians who leech off the system, the lobbyists that feed it, the journalists who report on it, the junkies who worship it. It, of course, is a Major Event in political circles but it is one rarely spoken of and certainly one seldom written about. Most in attendance are beholden to each other and a What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas agreement nearly always prevails. Not here though.

No, we could sit here and talk about that night to the wee hours and probably longer. We will stay relatively focussed, however, other than to say Sharon Burrows was kissed smack on the lips by one of her most unlikely admirers, a personal friend of mine and well regarded economist who runs by the name of Kendall. That and the fact them Ferguson boys, Martin and Laurie, sure can throw them down.

The main act of the evening, at least from my perspective, came well after the brief Kendall-Burrows love affair and well before the Ferguson boys decided to call it a night. Senator Conroy and I were both on the dance floor doing what gets done on the dance floor at two in the morning on Budget Night when we became embroiled in what can most pleasantly be described as a disagreement.

In order to avoid any further business for my already busy legal team, the reasons behind our little exchange shall remain a matter between your author and the current Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. Needless to say, they involved a woman, alcohol and a high degree of obnoxiousness on both my part and the part of the Senator.

Conroy at one point was grabbed by the lapels of his cheap suit in the jilting light of the dance floor and a few choice words were exchanged. A threat or two may have been made. “Keep your hands to yourself Conroy or John and Jim Justice here may have to pass a censure motion right across your chin”. Indeed. He came back with some witless reply. The wheels were in motion for what I would like to imagine would have been a brutal beatdown but what most likely would have been an ugly display of the pugilistic arts between two men ill equipped to perform same. Right then he looked me in the eye, weakness and confusion all over his face.

Those days were, of course, the heady days of The Howard Years and hammering it out with an irrelevant Labor hack seemed akin to going six rounds with a paraplegic or stepping into the Octagon with one of the Golden Girls. Times were grand. We ruled the school. The ALP was on its knees, a jakey smelling of stale beer and its own piss, a no hoper on its last legs. Deep down we all knew politics was cyclical and that our own political Jazz Age would one day be replaced by another Great Depression but late on Budget night of 2004, the music blaring and the drink flowing and the keys to The Lodge safely in the possession of the Right Honourable John Winston Howard, that day didn’t appear to be all that near.

And it was that naïve and drunken optimism, combined with a heart at least partially filled with goodness, that led to me pushing Conroy to the side and telling him to go home to his wife before returning to the bar for some drink or another, a towering beast full of fury overcome by a feeling of benevolence and pity. It was Mo from “Beautiful Girls” all over again, when he is on the path of revenge for the beating of The Birdman by Rossmore when Rossmore’s kid walks out and Mo’s heart softens and Mo lets Rossmore go.

It was an act of compassion I now regret with a great deal of ferocity.

That once insignificant sleazebag with hate in his heart but fairy floss in his belly has now become a senior government minister, a modern day zealot looking to stomp on the freedoms of all Australians and with almost the power to do so. The Germans should have finished Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch and I should have dropped Conroy on Budget Night all those years ago. Ah, to do it all again…

This dunce whose only involvement in life has been The Great Labor Party Orgy has now risen up from the filth of the modern day Gomorrah that is Labor politics and is now attempting to invoke a national censorship regime with at least a few similarities in form to that used by Eastern Bloc states during the Cold War and the tyrannical censorship currently used in China.

Conroy is currently on a mission to make his lasting legacy a nationwide internet filter that would prohibit the viewing of certain sites across Australia at the service provider level. The argument of Conroy and his jackbooted henchmen is the same old vitriol sprouted by every hater of individual freedom: we have to save the children. It is a meaningless and insulting line trotted out so often that whenever it is heard it should be treated with the same contempt as those who argue the coaching credentials of Jason Taylor: total and utter.

Essentially Stephen Conroy wants to empower the Australian Government with the right to determine what Australians can and cannot see on the internet. He wants a collective of politicians and bureaucrats to determine what the population of a once free country can read, watch or view. Certain websites and content would be placed on a blacklist and banned. Conroy is arguing that the only content that would be placed on the blacklist is what is generally regarded as already unacceptable and/or illegal: child pornography, ultra violent images, pro rape screed and the like. Joe McCarthy thought he was doing right as well by targeting the subversiveness of communists on his blacklist.

No safeguards, however, have been put in place for the abuse of such powers. Already it is alleged by Crikey that one site on the blacklist is of a political nature, a pro abortion website. Most services providers say that such a filter is totally unworkable. The Internet Industry Association has one story of the entire Wikipedia being blocked because of one entry during the trial of such a filter.

We are treading a very dangerous path and it isn’t a long travel before we reach the point of no return. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. Such censorship is open to political abuse and bureaucratic incompetency that severely compromises the freedoms of Australian citizens. We are expected to believe that any Government in power will only act in the greater interest rather than for their own political well-being. Such expectations from Conroy and his simple-minded acolytes assume that we as a populace are all naïve ignoramuses.

Peter Black, who lectures internet law at the Queensland University of Technology, said on Crikey: “Ultimately the fate of this website [the anti-abortion site currently blacklisted] is an illustrative example of the dangers inherent in any Government censorship scheme. Issues of political speech, classification and accountability are without doubt both complex and important, and any notion that they can be adequately addressed and balanced by a Government regulator engaging in prior restraint is somewhere between being unbelievably naive and downright dangerous.”

Only Labor line-pullers, hysterical lobby groups with a hatred for personal freedom and incompetent parents seem to be supportive of a nationwide internet filter.

One segment of society who should certainly be scared are those involved in the gambling industry. How long until sports betting sites are placed on the banned list? The winds in some parts of Government seem to be blowing against the online wagering industry. Even if it was merely something like the service provider accidentally filtering out a site, how much money could that cost a company or a punter or both? The damage that could be done to the online wagering industry by Conroy’s jackboot censorship could be fatal.

It is a slippery slope and even the most experienced skater would struggle to gain traction once the marbles are let loose.

Morality is temporary, wisdom is permanent. Hunter Thompson said that and we would all be wise to remember those words for allowing such a heinous display of censorship in Australia that will once again tip the scales of power in favour of the moral winds of the day. The British Government are trying to roll out a plan that will see all service providers and communications companies keep records of the calls, texts, emails and website visits of every citizen, a Big Brother scenario that provides the basis for the government of the day to invade the privacy of any citizen at any time. We are not far behind if we allow this censorship to proceed. Add in a secret police force and you have Nazi Germany. Censorship is the first step. It all derives from blatant government scaremongering, playing on fears like terrorism and child safety. And it all ends with our personal rights, rights to privacy and free speech, inherently compromised.

This jackboot Nazi Conroy cannot be allowed to send Australia down such a brutal road. He is more Kim Jong Il than John Stuart Mill and he should be stomped with the same viciousness that he is trying to stomp on our individual freedom.

Never pass up the chance to smack a politician around. You will most likely one day live to regret it. Mercy is for the weak.